Because everything in baseball and Richard Greenberg’s “Take Me Out” is metaphor, think of his provocative Tony-winning best play of 2003 as 8 2/3 perfect innings undone by a blown save in the bottom of the ninth.
To appreciate how close this remarkable piece of writing comes to immortality, consider there have been only 17 perfect games in 130 years of big-league baseball. And there are nearly 10,000 attempts at perfection every season.
But as in horseshoes and hand grenades, close counts in baseball (it is a numbers sport, so everything counts). Imperfection is part of the game’s poetry, and in no other sport do disconsolate fans reward those who fly so close to the sun with a tip of the cap. It shows our common humanity, and our common hope. For even if only 17 men have ever achieved perfection, it remains a possibility every game.
“Take Me Out” works as a stage tragedy, as a profound exposé of homophobia in pro sports and as a treatise on how our national pastime has become a collision of ignorance with million-dollar babies.
But while the first two acts are nearly perfect, “Take Me Out” does not ultimately work as a plausible baseball story. Greenberg’s overreaching climax ultimately sacrifices plausibility for heightened irony and maximized tragedy. There isn’t a baseball fan in the world who wouldn’t call him on it – and then give him a tip of the cap for the attempt.
Despite that tragic flaw, the Curious Theatre Company’s exhilaratingly performed and technically executed regional premiere production of “Take Me Out” is its greatest accomplishment to date, which is saying something quite spectacular.
This is fable set within the nerve center of today’s testosterone-driven sports culture: the big-league locker room, a place teeming with homophobia and unchecked machismo.
In it, Greenberg simply asks, “What if?” What if a cocky, Derek Jeter-esque young superstar simply came out as gay? Not because he’s being blackmailed. Not because he wants to strike a blow for equality. Because he’s narcissistic enough to think he is untouchable. Because he is “one of the four black people in the past century” to have never suffered. He’s about to pay for his hubris.
Darren is young and rich and famous and talented, so of course he will have sex – “it’s a law,” he says. That he’d rather do it with a guy should not matter. But it does matter who our superstars sleep with, and here it matters most to redneck reliever Shane Mungitt, a Southern bumpkin who unleashes a shocking burst of racial epithets to the media, culminating in, “I don’t mind (those other people) – but every night to hafta take a shower with that faggot!?” It’s a repulsive line, but one that perfectly explains cultural hostility in pro sports.
But Greenberg did not win the Tony for the novelty of his premise alone. He won it for creating Mason Marzak, a gay accountant based on himself. “Mars” is one of the most original characters ever conceived for the stage. He knows nothing about baseball at first, so we slowly discover the game anew through the eyes of a giddy loner who can appreciate the sophistication of the metaphor with more clarity than anyone who has lived and breathed the game since age 6.
The play is also revolutionary for deftly becoming about something other than gay victimization. Darren assumes the all-
but-unheard-of role of gay predator, and so a major issue becomes that of individual responsibility.
Director Chip Walton elicits monumental performances from his four key actors. Tyee Tilghman is 50 pounds shy of carrying off the superstar mystique, but that quickly dissipates in a carefully measured, on-point performance. Leigh Miller is charming as narrator Kippy, a character more rare than a gay ballplayer – he’s a highly cerebral shortstop who understands three languages.
But “Take Me Out” belongs to Erik Sandvold in the performance of his career as Mars. To steal a line from the play, Sandvold’s performance is unrelentingly meaningful. He plays the perfect foil for the cynicism pervading today’s sports fans.
One of Walton’s few errors is in the initial appearance of John M. Jurcheck as Mungitt. In the midst of a very funny opening monologue, Kippy introduces Mungitt, who is written to look exactly like the 6-foot-10 Randy Johnson. This is a key moment meant to foreshadow a dumb, deadly menace, but the audience roars at the hair and comic antsiness that make Mungitt seem to be a comic hillbilly.
Jurcheck later atones in a gut-wrenching climactic display of controlled chaos that rivals Frederick Weller’s performance on Broadway. Terrific support work by Jason Henning, David Russell, Kurt Soderstrum and Bryon Matsuno round out a great ensemble.
Some will dismiss the fully visible shower scenes as naked titillation, but they are essential. On Broadway the men showered front and center, but perhaps in a show of regional modesty, Walton puts the showers at the back of the stage.
A perfect night? Not quite. A tip of the cap? Most definitely.
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-820-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
“Take Me Out”
***½
DRAMA|Curious Theatre Company|Written by Richard Greenberg|Directed by Chip Walton|Starring Tyee J. Tilghman and Erik Sandvold|1080 Acoma St.|THROUGH JULY 2|8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays|2 hours, 20 minutes |$20-$26 ($13 Thursdays)|303-623-0524 |WARNING: adult content, nudity
